The invention relates to a centering and clamping device.
A clamping device of this type is known in the prior art from German Patent No. 37 10 472. Here the support is a tool and the base is the arm of a robot. That part of the device facing the support (support part) is designated as the tool receiver and that part of the device facing the base (base part) is designated as the coupling element. The passive coupling element on the support part is a stay bolt, whose head displays a conical undercut area; the bolt engages with a receiver bore in the base part. Located on the wall of this bore is a collar consisting of balls which are pushed toward the center by a actuator in the form a circular piston employing a spring force; the balls seize the head of the stay bolt and draw it inward until the support part comes into contact with the open face of the base part. Centering occurs independent of the clamping system and by means of four centering pine with tapered heads, which engage with the openings of a flexible centering plate that can be moved in the axial direction.
A disadvantage of this known clamping device is that the stay bolt in the support part and the centering pins on the base part project above the contact surface and that there is a relatively deep insert hole on the base part. These two structural features make it impossible to employ the machine table of a machine tool as a base for the device, since in operation without a clamping device, chips and dirt would enter the insert hole and because of the protruding centering elements it would be impossible to position and displace the tools or clamp them in another place.